


Roses, for Eternal Love.

by pretive



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Crossover, Fluff, Funny, Humor, M/M, Phan - Freeform, Phandom - Freeform, Phanfiction, angsty, phanfic, the corpse bride - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-09 18:25:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8907154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pretive/pseuds/pretive
Summary: Maybe it's inside his head, all of it. He'll wake up in the morning with a cramp in his neck from falling asleep at the desk once again. He won't be promised to be married to Blythe Remington and he won't be married to a walking corpse with a wedding suit on.Based almost entirely off of Tim Burton’s ‘The Corpse Bride’. I do not take any credit for the movie or it’s production, nor to I claim ‘The Corpse Bride’ as my own. I have altered the plot to fit entertainment purposes.





	1. His Smile, Almost Gone

“Philip! We’ll be late if you don’t stop mucking around!” His mum screeches, wriggling into their carriage. He solemnly shuts his window, wary of the sky’s uncanny ability to leak through the slats and onto his sketches. He makes sure to release the butterfly he was sketching first. 

Phil chuckles at his father’s failed attempts at helping his mother into the carriage, recruiting the carriage master to help the woman in. A look around the room makes his heart hurt at the past memories of sheltered activities. The wallpaper is peeling, and the last board on the north side of the room is warping from the hole in the roof. His father had long since fixed the hole in the roof, but the board was endearing and the wallpaper was proof of his love for the room. He’d miss it.

Phil takes a look in the mirror, comparing himself to the childhood picture stuck to the edge. He’d grown taller, towering over his family by miles. His hair, well he has been dying it black since his teenage years when he fell into the wash bin and permanently bleached an area on his head blonde. He’d lost all of his baby fat, and his cheekbones stood out against his face. His smile, it was almost completely gone. 

He shuts the door behind him and runs down the stairs to the carriage. The Remington’s house was just a few minute’s walk, but with his mother’s theatrics, it was almost easier to just go with it. Besides, whether or not they walked, he’d still have to hear his mother go on about his posture and the way his hair fell in front of his eyes. 

They pass by the man sweeping on the corner in front of his shop and the men in front of Phil’s family's merchant shop; they wave at him through the window. It’s a beautiful town, really. To his standards at least. It’s served him well, but the past few weeks have been filled with worry and sadness and temporization.

As they arrive, he can almost feel the dismal afternoon before it happens. The sky's getting darker than usual, and he’s afraid that he’ll be soaked before he gets to the door if he doesn’t hurry. It’s much easier getting his mother out of their carriage than it is trying to get her in. He had met Blythe Remington and her parents once before. They and their butler, running around with his nose high, were extremely egotistical. Blythe herself was quiet mannered, far too much for his own desire. He was quiet enough, their own flat would be positively silent.

Adam and Kathy Remington are standing stoically at the top of their staircase, noses turned upward at their arrival. Phil had heard from the children on the corner as he passed one morning, who had heard it from their own parents, that the Remingtons were running out of money. Of course, that mustn't be the case. Phil’s family were only one of salmon merchants, not exactly the finest in all of Europe.

“Well, come on, we’ll discuss the financial arrangements in the tea room.” Kathy suggests, and Phil’s parents follow behind her and her stub of a husband. The tea room doors slam, and Phil can’t find it in him to follow. He turns slightly and his knee is met with a piano stool. He gasps at the expensive piano in front of him, the only thing in the house with any hints of dust. 

He knew Moonlight Sonata and a few basic chords, but that’s the extent of his musical knowledge in his mind. He presses a few notes, cringing at the sound that plays. Maybe he should invest in piano lessons once the wedding is done and over with.

“Do you play?” 

Phil jumps back, nearly knocking over the bench and stirring a vase ever so slightly. He sucks in a breath. 

“Excuse me, Miss. No, I don’t really. I was taught it for a while in grade school. May I ask where your chaperone is?” Phil clears his throat awkwardly. Blythe is standing in nothing but her under gown, and he’s just a bit uncomfortable at the fact that he’s alone with her. 

She looks away. “Oh.” And walks back up the staircase. He’s reeling with fear of the mere wedding and now on top of that, embarrassment.

If today got any worse, Blythe would end up marrying a dead man. 

***

To be completely honest, he did better than he anticipated, considering that he hadn’t taken one look at the vows at all. But he did drop a candle on the table cloth and knocked over the entire glass of wine onto Blythe’s dress, and he was all but beheaded by Adam Remington who sat with a look of pure, murderous disapproval. The preacher threw him out the door so fast that his head spun. 

That’s how Phil ended up sitting on a rotting log in the middle of the woods across from the bridge, reciting his vows wrong over and over. 

“Reciting the wrong vows to the wrong person, how ironic.” He mumbles, and rises from the log. He could do this. “With this hand, I will lift your sorrows. Your cup will never empty, for I will be your wine. With this candle, I will light your way through darkness. With this ring, I ask you to be mine.” He whispers to himself, and cheekily places the ring upon a branch reaching up from the snow. “Maybe I just can’t say it to her.” 

Phil sighs and reaches for the ring. He needs to just go home, recite the lines a few times, and be prepared for tomorrow. He’d no doubt be fine once he could get past the whole, ‘Marriage to a Near Stranger’ headline. But as soon as he touches the ring of gold, the ‘branch’ latches onto his wrist. 

Phil screams, loudly at that. “No! Somebody help!” What use would it be though? He’d wandered out into the middle of the forest what would he say if someone did get there to help? Can you help me detach my arm from this branch/not branch that is pulling on my arm and not letting me go? Maybe Phil is releasing a few tears of frustration, but he’s not. Really. 

The branch breaks off and is still stuck around his wrist. He tugs and huffs. He’s tired of explaining things. Whether it be why he hadn’t rehearsed before the rehearsal, or why he had a half of a handcuff magically latched around his wrist, he’s so tired of explaining. 

Phil freezes in fear as the ground around where the branch had been starts to rumble and crack, and something that is definitely not a tree arises. He crawls backwards as fast as he can possibly move to get up and get a fucking grip. A grip on the fact that he is supposed to be married off to a woman he barely knows tomorrow. A grip on how his wrist has something gripping it. A grip on how a body was towering above him in a suit, skin pale and missing a bit of suit here or there.

A grip on the fact that the ‘branch’ on his his wrist, is really a bony hand, one with his ring on it, and that the ‘thing’ towering over him is a corpse. 

Phil whimpers as the corpse leans down, and Phil closes his eyes. Suddenly, his wrist feels a lot lighter, and when he opens his eyes the corpse is rubbing his own wrist and Phil’s is free. 

“What—what are you?” Phil murmurs, and he finally gets a good look at the corpse’s face. 

“I’m Daniel, your husband.” Dan has brownish hair, and despite the missing area of his suit jacket that is revealing a rib and his bony hand, he’s mostly intact. He’s extremely pale, even paler than Phil, who in all his porcelain glory. Dan’s eyes are reflecting the moon, which is illuminating them both just enough to give Phil a good look at Dan’s face, and his coffee coloured eyes—wait did he just say, husband?

Phil’s eyes widen. “No, no no, this—this isn’t—” Phil’s stomach is churning as he stands shakily and begins to walk backwards, not once breaking eye contact with the corpse. This has to be the worst dream he’s ever had. You can’t just marry a corpse. It’s not possible. It’s not even possible for a corpse to be standing in front of him. “This isn’t happening.”

When he sees Dan begin to follow him, Phil turns around and runs as fast as he possibly can given his fitness level. Dan seems to glow, the moon reflecting onto the ground behind him as he ran. Thorny locusts are ripping at his suit, tearing at the shoulder and waist. 

Phil falls at the foot of the bridge, barely able to breathe but sees no sign of Dan coming out of the woods after him. 

He screeches when he turns around to be greeted with the cocoa coloured eyes he’d just been running from.


	2. Best Mistake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe it's inside his head, all of it. He'll wake up in the morning with a cramp in his neck from falling asleep at the desk once again. He won't be promised to be married to Blythe Remington and he won't be married to a walking corpse with a wedding suit on.

Phil can’t deny that waking up in a pub greeted by a few rotting faces and a lot of skeletal figures is a little disorienting. 

“Please, leave him alone,” a voice calls, and Phil faintly recognizes it. “He’s alive, you're scaring him!” They argue, and the chattering skulls residing above him disappear, replaced by Dan. His face holds a sad grin. “I think we need to go somewhere and talk.”

Phil nods dreamily. He walks hunched over, trying to increase the space between him and the undead around him. You can't blame him, really. If you saw a rotting eyeball with a pair of chatting maggots, you’d be a little nauseated too.

Dan leads them off to a very dark room, a candle being the only source of light and warmth. There's a bed, and the sheet on it was so thin, it was nearly translucent, but Phil couldn’t care less. Dan watches, amused, as Phil hurries under the holey sheet and holds his hands over the fire. Humans.

Phil flinches slightly as Dan sits down on the bed beside him. 

“I'll take a wild guess and say that you didn't really propose to me, did you?” Dan releases a breath, laced with discontent. His shoulders slump, and his arms wrap around his torso, almost as if he was protecting himself.

They make eye contact, and Phil shakes his head apologetically. 

“If it makes you feel any better, I didn't propose to the woman I'm supposed to be marrying either,” he mumbles, shivers taking a hold of his body. 

Dan bites his purple lip lightly. “You're straight, I'm so sorry. I was hoping for too much. They always told me to be wary of the heart’s choices, but look where that got me. Sometimes the mind will hurt you too.” Dan frowns. Phil could tell, even without the information, that the way Dan had passed had not been a pleasant one.

“I'm bisexual, actually. And I have to agree. No one cares what my heart says about Blythe, but my mind says do it. I'd rather be alone and happy than married and miserable,” Phil assures, and Dan nods. They sit in silence for a few moments before Dan releases a breath and pulls the ring off of his finger.

“This doesn't belong to me, I'm so sorry,” Dan whispers, and puts it in the palm of his boney hand. Quickly, he switches it to his flesh covered hand, and chuckles at himself. “That was inconsiderate of me.” Phil chuckles too, tongue poking out from behind his teeth.

Phil pockets the ring inside of his jacket and lets another wave of shivers take hold, goose pimples making their way across his body.

“I'm sure I could light the fireplace if I tried. It's hard to comprehend the body temperature of humans now. It's been a few years.” Dan moves to a wood pile, finding the least wet chunk and tossing it into the fireplace in the far corner of the room. 

Whilst Dan starts up a fire for Phil, Phil starts to wonder. He said it had only been a few years since he had passed, how old was Dan exactly?

“Mind me if this comes across rude, but how old are you— were you?” Phil asks, trying to be as polite as possible..

Dan chuckles. “I was a few months turned seventeen. I'm going to be twenty next June.” Phil gasps quietly. Dan was so young, even still. To still be a teenager after being dead for two years? That's awful, in Phil’s mind.

Phil doesn't say anything, he doesn't even know what he could say. There isn’t a response to something like that.

The fire engulfs the pieces of wood, and Phil rushes towards it. Dan chuckles as Phil hums in content. 

“Thank you Dan,” Phil murmurs after a few moments, and Dan grins at him, not bothering to answer.

Phil watches Dan, who’s grin slowly slipped away as he became entranced by the flames, for a little bit. Dan was indeed beautiful and kind. The fire lit up his face in every right way, and the way Dan spoke was careful and soft. He had more personality than anyone Phil’s met in a long time. 

Phil doesn't think he wants to lose someone like Dan. 

***

 

Phil must have fallen asleep by the fire because when he wakes, he’s engulfed in a thick blanket and Dan is reading on the edge of the bed. Dan is completely unaware, as far as Phil knows, to Phil’s waking, and he’s carefully hung upside-down and reading a novel about as thick as Phil’s closed fist.

“Phil, we must go see the elder to get you back home.” Dan startles Phil from his waking thoughts, and maybe Dan’s more aware than Phil had originally thought. Phil focuses back in on Dan with bleary eyes—he was wearing contacts still. Dan is sitting propped up on his elbows, novel bookmarked by a cold bone of a finger. “You won’t live for long if you stay here. We have no safe food or proper heating for you other than the things I could gather from coffin donations.”

Phil nods tiredly, feeling the slight rumbling of his stomach. 

Dan dog-ears the page before resting his chin onto his arms and speaking. “He won’t be back until later; we could do some looking around. Finding, adventuring. I really haven’t gone past the street just past the pub and here.” Dan almost looks excited, child-like joy radiating from his ever-prominent soul.

“That sounds nice.” Phil replies. “Would these coffin donations happen to have glasses? My eyes are burning,” he grumbles. 

Dan nods. “Of course, a ton. When your eyes rot out of your face, you lose the need for glasses. You kind of gain a spiritual sight, so say the older skeletons at the pub. Most of them are piss drunk, as drunk as one can get when dead, so maybe I shouldn’t quote them. Sorry, you’re not exactly a morning person, I can tell.” Dan apologizes.

Phil chuckles and reaches into his eye to rid himself of the blasted pieces of plastic. “Sounds interesting. You’re really fine, Dan, I’m just slightly tired. A whole ton has happened in the past twenty-four hours,” Phil reassures. 

Dan moves to a wardrobe, warped like Phil’s floorboard and in the shape of a worn coffin, and opens it up. Phil looks around and notices all the things he couldn’t when shivering and freshly informed of what was happening. It’s a fair sized room but no bigger than his own. There is a wardrobe, cedar chest, bed with metal framing, and books scattered around the room, centered near the chest. A couple photos are on the wall, and Phil instantly recognizes the coffee eyes. Phil guesses he was buried with the photos.

Dan turns around and offers a set of clothes to Phil. “I hope you don’t mind, they’re a bit dusty, and I got them from coffin donations and second-hand spider tailors.” It’s a simple black shirt and loose soft pants. Phil smiles gratefully. His suit is getting chaffey. 

Dan turns away while Phil changes, and Phil is silently grateful for the privacy, but Phil can’t help but watch as Dan pulls off his own shirt to change. He was curious. There’s many a discoloration on Dan’s back, which could be passed off as vessels bursting and blood clotting, if they weren’t shaped like hands. 

Along with the bruises, there are raised lines across the expanse of his back. Phil turns away out of respect as Dan pulls down his trousers to reveal fingertip bruises along his waist. Phil hasn’t ever felt pain like Dan had, but the second hand hurt was nearly as painful.

Phil felt many emotions so shortly after waking: excitement for their day together, fear for being in the land of the dead, disgust for what Dan had to go through, and disappointment that he was going to be leaving. Dan is much better company than anyone in the land of the living.


	3. Pinky Bone Promises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know it's a very short chapter, but it's also a sort of filler/entry way to the next one without making a two thousand word chapter. The next one should be longer, hopefully. When I mass edit this story, a lot of chapters will be combined, so that will definitely be something to look forward to.

“So wolves were trying to drag you up? Oh my lord” Dan chuckles.

“Hence how my arm got stuck above the surface.” Phil shakes his head. They talked quite a bit throughout their day, and Dan got Phil a pair of glasses after leading the mole rat to the second hand shop (you’d be surprised just how many second hands they sold).

Dan is quick witted and funny, extremely so, and sweeter than the sugar in Phil’s morning coffee. His eyes shine when speaking, and it doesn’t take long for Phil to get used to a boney hand latching onto him to pull him toward another part of the underworld. 

It’s some time later when they reach a building that’s nothing much, but is cozy and has a small, warped piano against the wall.

Dan sits down on the bench and pats the seat beside him. Phil runs his hands gently over top of the keys, turning to Dan when he releases a heavy sigh.

Dan turns to Phil, “Is it selfish of me to say that I wish you wouldn’t leave?” Phil’s heart does a little somersault. “Like, I’d never wish death upon anyone that didn’t deserve it, but you’re the best companion I’ve ever known, even temporarily.” Dan turns his head away to face the piano.

Phil smiles sadly. “You’re the best companion I’ve ever known as well, Dan. I wouldn’t leave if I had the choice.”

Dan giggles softly. “But you can’t really die in the land of the dead, can you?” Phil chuckles at the thought as well. They don’t touch on the topic much more, and let themselves be engulfed in a comfortable silence. 

Phil’s taking in what he can: the bright colors, the little jokes, the fidgety way Dan fixes his hair, all of it. The land of the living is so dead compared to this one. 

Phil’s interrupted by Dan pressing on the keys. It’s slow at first, picking up speed as it goes along, and Phil is entranced. It’s so dark in the room, but with those little bits of light in the cracks. Dan plays the piano beautifully, life filling his songs. (Phil really needs to stop with the whole life death thing, it’s becoming less and less funny after every mention.)

“Phil.” Dan stops playing, the last note ringing out for a few moments, “Please treat her well, no matter the trouble she gives you. If she makes you happy, that’s all that matters. Promise me?” Dan is extremely serious about this, face stern but gentle in the way he’s always looked. He extends his pinky bone out, and Phil links his with it. “If she doesn’t make you happy, she’s not worth the title.”

Phil nods firmly. “I promise.”

 

***

Phil wakes up on the warm mattress in his room. He remembers meeting the elder of the underworld, breathing in a beautiful cream smoke that smelt of vanilla. He remembers wondering if those were tears he saw on Dan’s face as he fell asleep.

Phil looks around, instantly noticing the presence of someone else in the room. His father, body hunched over Phil’s desk, is shaking. It takes a few moments to realize the shaking is crying.

“Dad?” His father stands abruptly, moving to his bedside.

“Oh Phillip, I was so worried.” That struck Phil by surprise. His father has been stoic and abiding to his mother since Phil was a young boy, and now he's crying and having a one on one conversation with Phil. “When I found you, you were cold as ice, your lips were blue. You looked like you had been touched by death himself. I thought I'd lost my son.” 

Phil gets a sudden itch in his throat, and it strikes him that he must have caught a cold when he was returned back to the land of the living.

“I'm okay, really. What happened exactly?” His father sighs, sitting on the edge of the bed as Phil sits up.

“You left after the minister kicked you out. Later in the night, someone reported a figure carrying you out of town unconscious. We had many a search party for the next few days, and you showed up yesterday at the end of the bridge, suit cut up and lips blue.” His father rubs his chin, foot lightly tapping against the wood floors. “Your mum has been worried sick and livid on top of that. She’s more worried about you, though. The wedding has been postponed until you’re well again, until then, you just worry about getting better.”

Phil sighs and burrows back into his covers at the mention of his marriage. “Yeah, okay.”

It’s an uncomfortable silence, but it’s better than the topic that they were on. 

“Phil, your sketches are quite extraordinary, especially the drawing of the men. I, I never knew. I’m sorry, Phillip.” A shift in the bed and the squeak of his door tells him that his father has left, and Phil can’t help but to let a few tears fall. 

His father hadn’t ever been a father, per se. He’d done the ‘father's duties’ and put food on the table, but he wasn’t ever really there for Phil. But he does care, and he is crying for Phil, and he’s regretful of his decisions toward Phil. It was the most affection he’s ever received from either of his parents in his lifetime, and it happened when he was found, ‘touched by death itself’. 

If only they know how true that is. 

Phil knows it couldn’t have been a dream. All of the events in his mind line up. But it makes it harder to forget, to pretend like he was dreaming, pretend like he hadn’t seen a better version of the world, even if most of it was literally dead. It makes it especially hard to forget about Dan, the witty and charming corpse that made him laugh enough to last a lifetime. 

He’d only known Dan for about two days, but it was enough to determine the type of person that he was—had been. He was intelligent, for passing so young, and had a sense of humor that lined up perfectly with Phil’s. Dan was kind, passionate about the things he loved, and he left the world far too soon.

It hadn’t been hard to decipher what had happened to Dan. The bruises and the whip marks were painfully obvious. Maybe they could have been from something more had they not been placed where they were, in the shapes of fingers and hands. Dan had a suit on most of their time together, a wedding suit, to be more specific. Things just lined up, in Phils mind, and he couldn’t shake the want to give Dan a better marriage than what he’d experienced. 

That wasn’t Phil’s place anymore, though. He would not be able to prolong his sickness past the point of desperation, where Blythe might be married off to someone else. The most he’d see of Dan until death do Phil part, would be in his sketchbook. Phil has to draw him before he forgets. He doesn’t want to forget Dan. 

He works at his desk for what seems to be hours, making the shading just right, capturing Dan’s dimple that Phil hadn’t paid specific attention to when he was there, but has obviously remembered. Dan’s eyes wouldn’t ever shine as bright in his sketch as they would in person, but this would have to do considering the circumstances.

Phil doesn’t bother closing the sketchbook, he’ll look at it tomorrow and the next day and so on until it lost it’s importance. He can’t pine for Dan forever, not when he’s getting married to a live woman. 

In a passing thought, Phil thinks, ‘Maybe I’d rather be married to a dead man’.


	4. Till Death Ties Our Souls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter ^.^

Apparently, when he’d woken up, it was Christmas Eve, meaning today is Christmas Day. His parents have even gotten him a few extra gifts this year. They’d never done much for Christmas, other than set up their plain white Christmas tree in the window, a few pieces of tinsel over the doorways, and fake snow on the windowsill for good measure. Phil manages to light a few candles around them, and his presents are wrapped with bows.

The town isn’t much of a festive sight, but there are some light up angels on the street lamps and a couple of snowmen and snow angels made by the children.

Phil doesn’t usually get more than one gift a year, and in return he gets his parents a voucher to a restaurant a town over. Gift receiving wise, this year, his mother had bought things for the wedding, but hasn't said much. His father had bought him brand new sketching pencils and a leather bound book of blank paper. The leather is sleek and stitched with black thread. The pages are clean and just a barely noticeable off-white. The pencils look expensive, beautifully crafted.

“For those sketches you do, from your mother and I.” It’s a quiet Christmas, but there is snow, and Phil chuckles at the fun the children are having playing in the streets. The sky isn’t any different than usual, grey and dreary. The streets are slick with shiny ice, and the pavements are dusted with snowflakes. A few yards have large patches of snow dedicated to snowmen or snow forts or igloos. It isn’t as appealing this year as it used to be.

His parents leave at eight for an annual Christmas pageant. Phil decides to take a walk. Everyone, even the headliner, has gone to the pageant, but Phil isn’t persuaded. Instead, he walks across the bridge, through the brush, and back into a familiar clearing of trees. He isn’t exactly thrilled to be back to the land of the living. Phil really can’t look at the town the same after seeing the world he did. His world is grey, Dan’s is colourful and wayward and filled with soft light and music and happiness. 

Upon arrival, Phil isn’t been expecting much. A snow covered log, maybe a few branches, moonlight, but not Dan. Especially not a crying Dan. Dan is back in his suit, in a crouch position over the area Phil had found him in the first time.

“Dan? What are you doing here, how, how are you here?” Dan gasps, jumping away from Phil. He calms down once he realizes who it is.

That didn’t cease the crying, only the panic by a mild touch. “I...I thought you were him. I’m tired of waking up here during Christmas, I don’t want to see him! I died, that should have been the end! Why do I have to wake up every year to see the last person on Earth that I want to see, Phil? Why?” Phil didn’t think it was possible for a corpse to cry, but it’s happening, tears sticking to Dan’s cheeks like snowflakes to the roofs in town.

Phil can’t form words to console him, mind mixed with pity and surprise. Instead, he leans down and hugs Dan instead. Dan sobs in his arms, and Phil’s ears tune in to footsteps nearby, and Dan only sobs louder, pushing Phil away from him into the bushes. 

“Hide,” Dan urges quietly, cowering back into the bush behind him.

Phil just manages to get out of sight as a large man comes into view, hair slicked back, body pressing the boundaries of the suit with what can only be muscle. His eyes are sharp and staring at Dan menacingly. Frankly, it pisses Phil off. 

“You come back for me every year Danny. You slut, can’t get enough, even beyond the grave.” Phil is burning with anger. This man is the one who hurt Dan. “You like the pain, you masochist.” 

Phil, already sitting on his haunches, lunges forward and succeeds in knocking the giant over in one blow. 

Dan starts screaming as they tussle, the giant taking over quickly. Phil spits on his face, only angering the man further. It happens quickly and relatively smoothly. Phil doesn’t really comprehend what’s happening until Dan starts to scream at the giant of a man who’s now running off with bloody hands. That’s when Phil realizes the knife sticking out of his own abdomen and hisses. 

“Shit, that kind of hurts,” Phil manages to huff out trying to avoid looking at the quickly spreading blood leaking from him. Dan is sobbing above him, tears soaking Phil’s suit jacket that he would have worn to the pageant if he’d gone. It’s his wedding suit as well, and Phil bites back the pain to reach into the inner pocket and pull out a familiar gold band. 

“Phil,” Dan starts, but Phil shushes him.

Phil grabs Dan’s hand, intertwining their fingers. “With this hand, I will lift your sorrows.” Phil squeezes Dan’s hand. 

“I’ve known you for a week, Phil,” Dan chuckles sadly.

“And in that time you’ve become the only one I can think about. Let this be my dying wish.” Dan nods and sniffs, letting Phil finish. “Your cup will never empty, for I will be your wine. We can do that later, I’ve decided. With the candle in your room, I will light your way through darkness. With this ring, I ask you to be mine. Please.” Phil’s wheezing at this point, shaky fingers slipping the gold band onto Dan’s finger after removing the other one.

“Since I’m taking your bride’s ring, it’s only fair you take my groom’s. With this hand—” Phil tenses, eyes closing. Dan speeds up, finishing the vows, slipping the ring onto Phil’s finger. He leans down and kisses Phil on the lips, and for the first time in a long time, Dan feels warmth. 

Dan collapses onto Phil’s chest, avoiding the knife, tired and dizzy. Dan hears a faint, ‘I love you’ and manages a small one back before he falls asleep. 

\---

“New arrival, new arrival!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to El and Cass for being wonderful and supportive while I work through stuff and for being my biggest encouragers through the story. Special thanks to Jess at cactuslester on tumblr for beta-ing and generally being a very wonderful person. This is my first ever completed chapter fic, which I wrote in a pretty short time span, surprisingly. 
> 
> Big thanks to my little sister, who unknowingly helps a lot just by sitting beside me in my room when I don't feel good mentally or physically and playing this movie for me. <3 
> 
> Thank you to ALL of you who have read this story from the beginning, and to those who leave kudos and comments, it means a ton to me <3


End file.
